it *would* be nice if someone wrote a media plugin for pytivo that could choose itunes playlists. I personally don't use pytivo for pictures/music though, and I suspect most of the developers are currently focussing on the new 'mp4' stuff.

I do use pyTivo for pictures and music, but I don't use iTunes. (Well, not seriously -- I do have 700 megs of MP3's on my Mac, but no playlists.) And really I'm the only one who works on the music plugin. So, yeah.

Quote:

I'm not certain why you are getting skips in the music though.

I'd think that the computer was too slow, but it's only MP3's... I have an idea, though; let me get back to you on it.

Quote:

oops, and I just re-read the message. Sounds like 'photos' is also breaking. Oddly enough, it's working for me (grrr).

Not odd; that one's definitely connected to the speed of the machine. Not in a completely straightforward way, though. I've written about this extensively elsewhere, but the bottom line is that I haven't been able to fix it, except by using a faster machine.

The same #5-6 errors afflict the music plugin, although this is a separate issue from the skipping.

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What pre-transcoding method is the best these days? I usually like Handbrake although I remember that the old videostream didn't care for handbrake rendered files much. If there a pre-set that can save me the trouble and is it possible to sent AC3 instead of AAC (for the sake of my home theater)?

I don't believe handbrake is able to output mpeg-2 files, so that's out. VLC can if you prefer a gui...

This is just stolen from streambaby's defaults for 'same quality'. You may want to drop the -r 29.97 unless you have a REALLY weird framerate in your source. That will output an mpeg-2 with ac-3 audio. I'm sure there are probably tons of 'better' solutions too...

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I do use pyTivo for pictures and music, but I don't use iTunes. (Well, not seriously -- I do have 700 megs of MP3's on my Mac, but no playlists.) And really I'm the only one who works on the music plugin. So, yeah.

I'd think that the computer was too slow, but it's only MP3's... I have an idea, though; let me get back to you on it.

Not odd; that one's definitely connected to the speed of the machine. Not in a completely straightforward way, though. I've written about this extensively elsewhere, but the bottom line is that I haven't been able to fix it, except by using a faster machine.

The same #5-6 errors afflict the music plugin, although this is a separate issue from the skipping.

One thing a faster machine would solve is the inherit nature of how this application is designed. If its relying on python, it's going to be slower than a completely compiled application. There's just no way around that.

One other thing I get in the pyTivoX.log file is a complaint about not finding the C version of Namemapper. Not sure if this is a standard warning or something you guys should know about.

This is just stolen from streambaby's defaults for 'same quality'. You may want to drop the -r 29.97 unless you have a REALLY weird framerate in your source. That will output an mpeg-2 with ac-3 audio. I'm sure there are probably tons of 'better' solutions too...

What I meant was what Mp4 method is best to transcode my MPEG2 based DVDs to something the Tivo will like without further processing? An MP4 + AC3 solution would be ideal.

One other thing I get in the pyTivoX.log file is a complaint about not finding the C version of Namemapper. Not sure if this is a standard warning or something you guys should know about.

That is normal. (I get the warning too... I assume cheetah is not required, so I didn't bother getting and compiling it on every installation... I'm happy to be told otherwise and I'll install it with pyTivoX).

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What I meant was what Mp4 method is best to transcode my MPEG2 based DVDs to something the Tivo will like without further processing? An MP4 + AC3 solution would be ideal.

Ahh.
As of right now, pyTivo will transcode all mp4s to mpeg-2s (there is some talk of new support for mp4 downloads, but this is all very prelim).

streambaby *will* stream mp4's, although there are some limitations. I unfortunately don't know the 'full list' of limitations (I think people are still figuring them out in fact), I would ask that in the streambaby thread. Personally I'd stick to 'safe' settings (no b-frames, no cabac, h.264 level 4 or lower, etc). It's definitely worth trying it with a file or two and see what happens.

That said, I'm curious why you'd rather convert them to mp4s? high-bitrate mpeg-2 will look just as good as high bitrate mpeg-4, and will be a LOT faster to encode (I'd guess an HD movie on your computer will take several days to encode as an mpeg-4 -- unless you reduce the resolution). The advantages of mpeg-4 show up at lower bitrates, which I assume you're not planning on using if this is for movie viewing on a good TV.

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...
That said, I'm curious why you'd rather convert them to mp4s? high-bitrate mpeg-2 will look just as good as high bitrate mpeg-4, and will be a LOT faster to encode (I'd guess an HD movie on your computer will take several days to encode as an mpeg-4 -- unless you reduce the resolution). The advantages of mpeg-4 show up at lower bitrates, which I assume you're not planning on using if this is for movie viewing on a good TV.

I think the big advantage of MP4's is transfer speed and bitrate. Mp4's get (something like) twice the quality at half the bitrate. So a 4000kbs mp4 has the same quality as an 8000kbs mpeg2. (I'm not sure it's really twice, but it is very significant)

Combine that with the fact that the TiVo is able to receive MP4's much quicker than mpeg2 (mpeg2 bandwidth is restricted by TiVo processing) you end up being able to stream in realtime much higher quality videos via MP4 than you can with mpeg.

I think the big advantage of MP4's is transfer speed and bitrate. Mp4's get (something like) twice the quality at half the bitrate. So a 4000kbs mp4 has the same quality as an 8000kbs mpeg2. (I'm not sure it's really twice, but it is very significant)

Combine that with the fact that the TiVo is able to receive MP4's much quicker than mpeg2 (mpeg2 bandwidth is restricted by TiVo processing) you end up being able to stream in realtime much higher quality videos via MP4 than you can with mpeg.

fwiw, mpeg-2 outperforms mp4 (avc) at high bitrates. i.e. 20 mbps mpeg-2 video looks better than 20mbps mpeg-4. It's at low bitrates that mpeg-4 looks significantly better than mpeg-2. From what little I understand of avc, at anything over 10mbps, the quality returns diminish, whereas for mpeg-2, that only happens at around 40mbps. I suspect that at around the 5mbps mark both formats look about the same to most viewers, and then when you go lower (like 2mbps, which is what I tend to use for my movies) mpeg-4 clearly wins.

However, if mp4 files can be streamed to the tivo at a faster rate, then it's a definite win. I was mostly concerned for the fact that encoding mp4 is extremely CPU-intensive, and the OP was complaining about slow performance on his computer....

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Just a quick update- all seems to be working well following the port and beacon change. The restart did help as well. I want to thank you for your attention and dedication to the project. I look forward to exploring it and wanted to thank you for you attention to my issue and all those others who wrote looking for help. Your passion is clear and you've made my experience thus far amazing. I thank you.
Tad
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Ahh.
As of right now, pyTivo will transcode all mp4s to mpeg-2s (there is some talk of new support for mp4 downloads, but this is all very prelim).

streambaby *will* stream mp4's, although there are some limitations. I unfortunately don't know the 'full list' of limitations (I think people are still figuring them out in fact), I would ask that in the streambaby thread. Personally I'd stick to 'safe' settings (no b-frames, no cabac, h.264 level 4 or lower, etc). It's definitely worth trying it with a file or two and see what happens.

That said, I'm curious why you'd rather convert them to mp4s? high-bitrate mpeg-2 will look just as good as high bitrate mpeg-4, and will be a LOT faster to encode (I'd guess an HD movie on your computer will take several days to encode as an mpeg-4 -- unless you reduce the resolution). The advantages of mpeg-4 show up at lower bitrates, which I assume you're not planning on using if this is for movie viewing on a good TV.

I keep forgetting that I need to refer to pyTivoX and Streambaby seperately for the sake of clarity. First, I keep forgetting that pyTivoX will convert MP4s on the fly to MPEG2s if you're just doing a transfer. That by itself is pretty neat but I don't really use that feature much, Streaming on the other hand (i.e. Streambaby) is better to hand it pre-encoded MP4s that the Tivo can swallow whole (and you get to make HD versions if you like versus MPEG2s). My dream is to be able to convert most of my DVDs that are in rotation for my kids to MP4s that any of us (or babysitters) could fire up without getting a physical disc out (i.e. Handbrake). The Tivo has access to my ripped DVDs as well which play just fine...one vob file at a time. Not exactly user friendly!

BTW, I don't use my elderly server for Handbrake encoding. (that would be torture) I use either an Intel iMac that I have or my wife's MacBook Pro. The problem is that up until now, I haven't found an encoding scheme I've liked enough to dedicate enough encoding time to do a large number of movies. I'll have to revisit the Streambaby thread.

I'd think that the computer was too slow, but it's only MP3's... I have an idea, though; let me get back to you on it.

I remembered reports from Mac users that the Python process (and not just ffmpeg) was taking up an inordinate amount of CPU when transcoding video, and that this had been fixed by adding a buffer to the subprocess setup. (Only the Mac was affected, oddly.) But this hadn't been done for the music plugin. So I did, and it makes a big difference. I can't guarantee it will eliminate the skips (I didn't have any to begin with on my G4 Mini), but it does cut the CPU usage significantly. The change is in my repo now.

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Ok, just uploaded beta 21. This has the new wmcbrine pyTivo. Try it out and see if it helps out with your music?

(also, I don't really know what the difference is between wgw's and wmcbrine's, so if anything new breaks, tell me and we can try and fix it).

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Yes, that transcode works successfully. The .mpg file produced plays fine in VLC on the Mac, but when it's streamed to the Tivo via pyTivoX the audio sounds too high-pitched (chipmunk effect) - the video is fine. I'm not sure if it's getting transcoded again.

Yes, that transcode works successfully. The .mpg file produced plays fine in VLC on the Mac, but when it's streamed to the Tivo via pyTivoX the audio sounds too high-pitched (chipmunk effect) - the video is fine. I'm not sure if it's getting transcoded again.

Download the latest beta, and hit 'apply' to take the new changes.
Really the problem seems to stem from the fact that your source audio is very low-frequency-ranged, and I guess ffmpeg is refusing to convert it to a high-bitrate ac-3. The new code will default to a combined 192kbps across all channels, and hopefully that will work for you.

As for vlc, vlc can play a LOT more formats than the tivo can, and ffmpeg is doing its best to convert it to one that tivo likes, but *crap* does happen.

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Download the latest beta, and hit 'apply' to take the new changes.
Really the problem seems to stem from the fact that your source audio is very low-frequency-ranged, and I guess ffmpeg is refusing to convert it to a high-bitrate ac-3. The new code will default to a combined 192kbps across all channels, and hopefully that will work for you.

As for vlc, vlc can play a LOT more formats than the tivo can, and ffmpeg is doing its best to convert it to one that tivo likes, but *crap* does happen.

I've also noticed that the more recent the version of ffmpeg, the more problems it seems to have with audio transcoding. Sometimes it refuses to convert, other times the effect I get most often is a high pitched "warbling effect". I just switched back to using an older ffmpeg (the default one that comes with my Linux distro). I get the impression that the audio transcoding is under heavy development recently. (but that is just an impression)

I wish I could be more help with which versions of ffmpeg do what/support what, but it's really just trial and error for me.

Download the latest beta, and hit 'apply' to take the new changes.
Really the problem seems to stem from the fact that your source audio is very low-frequency-ranged, and I guess ffmpeg is refusing to convert it to a high-bitrate ac-3. The new code will default to a combined 192kbps across all channels, and hopefully that will work for you.

Closer. The TiVo plays the file, but the audio is still messed up - stuttering *and* the wrong frequency. Perhaps we should do as Keary said and wait for ffmpeg to get fixed :-)

No big deal, there are worse things in life. Thanks for the help, I appreciate your efforts. I wish I could help with this stuff (I'm a programmer) but I have a screaming baby to look after. Speaking of which...

From what I'm reading, it sounds like the sample rate is the issue, not the bitrate.

my *complete and utter guess* is that the sample rate is half, and the number of channels is 1 or 2, and so the original requested target bitrate of 384 was higher than it was willing to go (it was happy but distorted at 278 or whatnot, but it errored out with invalid bitrate at 384).

Either way, I'm taking it back to 384 on the next release, since lowering it didn't fix anything -- and I suspect people with 5.1 audio want to still have it sound 'good'.

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From what I'm reading, it sounds like the sample rate is the issue, not the bitrate.

You're right. I added -ar 48000 to the ffmpegexe.transcode in streambaby.ini and the audio plays fine on Tivo now. Would we want that setting for all transcodes, or should it be used only when the input audio is at an odd rate like 24000 like in this case?

Now the audio isn't distracting me, I can see that the frame rate is probably half what it should be. I'll investigate.

You're right. I added -ar 48000 to the ffmpegexe.transcode in streambaby.ini and the audio plays fine on Tivo now. Would we want that setting for all transcodes, or should it be used only when the input audio is at an odd rate like 24000 like in this case?

Now the audio isn't distracting me, I can see that the frame rate is probably half what it should be. I'll investigate.

I'm honestly not sure . I'd be a little wary of forcing everything/everyone to a fixed sample rate. I'm inclined to hoping that ffmpeg figures out a 'better way to convert' so we don't have to worry about it.

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When I access the folders I've shared with PytivoX via "Now Playing" on the Tivo everything works as expected.

But when I try to access those same shared folders via "Music, Photos, and Showcases" and click on "pyTivoX - Streambaby" I get this error: "An error occured while running the application. HTTP failure (Http connection error: 0x50005)"

Everything was working fine when I was using 1.1b16 but when I updated to 1.1b19 is when the above error started. I thought that 1.1b21 would fix this error but it's still happening.

I would include the error log in this post but I'm not sure how to find it.

Any help to resolve this error would be appreciated. PyTivoX and and Streambaby are an AWESOME combination for streaming video files to my Tivo. THANKS to the developers of both!

When I access the folders I've shared with PytivoX via "Now Playing" on the Tivo everything works as expected.

But when I try to access those same shared folders via "Music, Photos, and Showcases" and click on "pyTivoX - Streambaby" I get this error: "An error occured while running the application. HTTP failure (Http connection error: 0x50005)"

Everything was working fine when I was using 1.1b16 but when I updated to 1.1b19 is when the above error started. I thought that 1.1b21 would fix this error but it's still happening.

I would include the error log in this post but I'm not sure how to find it.

Any help to resolve this error would be appreciated. PyTivoX and and Streambaby are an AWESOME combination for streaming video files to my Tivo. THANKS to the developers of both!

Joe.

You can look at the log by opening Finder, and then choosing from the menu: "Go", "Go to Folder..." and typing in "/tmp/", the logs will be named pyTivoX-SB.log and pyTivoX.log

That said, I'm hazarding a guess that this is related to the fact that streambaby is trying to stream it now where it was transcoding before (which would explain why pytivo is still working with it). You can force streambaby to transcode by selecting any quality OTHER than 'same'.

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You can look at the log by opening Finder, and then choosing from the menu: "Go", "Go to Folder..." and typing in "/tmp/", the logs will be named pyTivoX-SB.log and pyTivoX.log

Here is the pyTivoX.log:

Code:

INFO:pyTivo:pyTivo is ready.
/Applications/pyTivoX.app/Contents/Resources/pyTivo-wmcbrine/Cheetah/Compiler.py:1532: UserWarning:
You don't have the C version of NameMapper installed! I'm disabling Cheetah's useStackFrames option as it is painfully slow with the Python version of NameMapper. You should get a copy of Cheetah with the compiled C version of NameMapper.
"\nYou don't have the C version of NameMapper installed! "
192.168.1.7 - - [21/Feb/2009 00:16:25] "GET /TiVoConnect?Command=QueryContainer&Container=%2F HTTP/1.0" 200 -
192.168.1.7 - - [21/Feb/2009 00:21:52] "GET /TiVoConnect?Command=QueryContainer&Container=%2F HTTP/1.0" 200 -

That said, I'm hazarding a guess that this is related to the fact that streambaby is trying to stream it now where it was transcoding before (which would explain why pytivo is still working with it). You can force streambaby to transcode by selecting any quality OTHER than 'same'.

Unfortunately I don't get to the screen that would allow me to change the quality value. As soon as I click on "pyTivoX - Streambaby" from the "Photos, Music, and Showcases" menu I get the error mentioned in my previous post.

Yoav, sample rate and bitrate are not related. And yes, you probably want to force the sample rate, since AFAICT, 44100 and 48000 are the only ones the TiVo can handle. (Well, I can't say that for sure, but I haven't found another good one.)

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Yoav, sample rate and bitrate are not related. And yes, you probably want to force the sample rate, since AFAICT, 44100 and 48000 are the only ones the TiVo can handle. (Well, I can't say that for sure, but I haven't found another good one.)

I was under the impression that things sampled at a lower rate compressed better (i.e. a 20Khz sampling rate yielded frequencies up to about 10khz, and so compressed more). So algorithms with bitrate caps would care about number of channels and sampling rate for the cap value. But anyways, I know nothing here, other than 'it's breaking'.

The choice to force all movies to a fixed sample rate isn't up to me.. that's a streambaby defaults issue. Does pytivo force all audio to a fixed sample rate?

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Hmm. the pytivo log has nothing interesting in it (to be expected since you're not using pytivo).

the pytivo-sb log seems to indicate that it's loading fine, and clearly your tivo sees it (or else you wouldn't be able to select streambaby). I do notice you're still using port 7288 which means you haven't updated to the latest beta in a while (or if you did, you still haven't clicked 'apply').

Other than that I'm not seeing anything that would explain the error. It might be worth rebooting the tivo and computer just in case (definitely upgrade pyTivoX and hit 'apply' before you do though).

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Upgraded to pyTivoX b22. Music actually seems worse now. I still get the same behavior...MP3s play ok and anything else needing to be transcoded (AAC, Lossless) can't play more than three seconds without drops and skips. But I'm also getting a lot of Error#3-5-6 just mousing around and trying to select any music. Weird.

My current hypothesis is that you'll see it more often the slower your system is (so, in your [NAS] case, a lot). But I can't really explain it. It seems to be a low-level network problem, something that the TiVo doesn't like about how Python works. The Photo plugin is also affected. I spent a lot of time on the issue, but it was pretty fruitless.

3-5-6 errors in the music plugin are the same as 5-6 errors in photos. If you weren't seeing them before, it was sheer luck. But it's an intermittent problem, so there's no predicting when it will show up.

Again, it's not that the system is too slow per se (although that may be the issue with the skips), but that, on slower systems, there's some strange timing problem in the networking that's obscured by a faster system. Since Python's networking seems to work fine with everything else, I tend to blame the TiVo end. But I don't know exactly what's going on there.

Just to illustrate the strangeness of the problem: Even though error 5-6 only appeared on my slowest system, it actually went away when I made pyTivo respond even more slowly, by adding some debug output. (Oh, it's fun trying to deal with a problem that goes away when you debug it!)

Since that system died, I no longer have any machines slow enough to evoke error 5-6.

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